By SCOTT MacLEOD
Accident victims who seem violent or drunk will have their ACC forms marked with warning stickers - to the dismay of privacy and mental health watchdogs.
ACC said yesterday that doctors, dentists and other health workers would have the option of labelling their patients' accident claim forms if they considered them dangerous. ACC staff who dealt with them later would know to be careful.
The move comes almost a year after ACC worker Janet Pike was fatally stabbed while dealing with a man who believed he was owed $350.
ACC said it had begun sending the stickers to health workers who dealt with accident claimants. Patients would not be told if they had been branded unsafe.
Copies of the forms could also be sent to employers, physiotherapists and x-ray staff.
ACC's Healthwise general manager, David Rankin, said staff had found communication problems when many agencies were dealing with the same person, and the stickers were a good way to pass on concerns.
"There were a number of features of Janet Pike's killing - a number of people knew about things," he said.
"When you're processing 6500 claims a day you get routine, and things happen."
But Warren Lindberg, the manager of a Health Funding Authority project to counter stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness, said the stickers raised serious issues about patient rights.
It was "highly risky and inappropriate" for someone to assess another person's mental health without proper training, he said. The diagnosis could be based on a stereotype, and there was the issue of whether the patient should be told of the assessment.
"It presumes that a person ... distressed in one situation will be distressed in another. I can get agitated and distressed and want to punch somebody, too."
Sue Bradford, Green Party spokeswoman on mental health and social services, said she sympathised with ACC staff but felt the patients should be told why they were branded and by whom.
A Victoria University senior law lecturer, John Miller, said the stickers were akin to "the mark of Cain."
ACC to brand risky patients
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